This year’s Primetime Emmy Awards nominations are set to be unveiled Thursday, after another noisy season of campaigning with plenty of drama to go around. There are several new series looking for the embrace of the Television Academy, and still more returning after hiatuses long and short. What kind of a mixture will we be looking at on final ballots?

Netflix is battling to find room for one of its new programs, like “Mindhunter” or “Ozark,” but return bids for “The Crown” and “Stranger Things” are more likely. The only new series that has a fighting shot otherwise is AMC’s “Killing Eve,” a binge-watching hit with a dedicated fanbase. In all likelihood, however, we’ll be looking at a slate of previous nominees this year.

Related

In contrast to the drama category, this year’s comedy field promises to be popping with debut series. HBO (“Barry”), Netflix (“GLOW”) and Amazon (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) all have strong contenders. There are a couple of revivals to consider as well, from ABC’s embattled “Roseanne” (unlikely) to NBC’s “Will and Grace” (more likely), and you might include the returning “Episodes” (Showtime) and, maybe the strongest of the lot “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO), both back after a few years away. Perhaps one of them or a critical darling like NBC’s “The Good Place” or Netflix’s “One Day at a Time” will finally unseat “Modern Family.”

This feels like the likely quintet but programs such as “Genius: Picasso” (NatGeo), “Patrick Melrose” (Showtime) and “Top of the Lake: China Girl” (Sundance) are in the mix as well. The story here will be Hulu expanding its Emmy game with “The Looming Tower,” a new potential for awards success after scoring with “The Handmaid’s Tale” last year. And if “Twin Peaks” misses the cut (it could), expect rioting from David Lynch’s obsessed fanbase.

In this, a category that’s embarrassingly thin and should be rethought as a separate arena, expect HBO to be dominant as ever. The cable network has three strong contenders, including one that was a critical dud but may slide in anyway (“Fahrenheit 451”) and one acquired out of Sundance in a game-changing move for the Emmy landscape (“The Tale”). If anything is poised to surprise it could be one of two episodes eligible from Amazon’s anthology series “Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams.”

“Westworld” players Ed Harris and Jeffrey Wright got the bump up to lead from supporting this year, but that just leaves them facing a more competitive field here. Newcomers Bateman and Highmore have their sights set on a couple of spots in the lineup, but watch out for J.K. Simmons, lurking on the bubble for his dual portrayal in “Counterpart.”

We’ll take a flier on Oh representing the popular underdog “Killing Eve,” edging out contenders like Laura Linney (“Ozark”) and Mandy Moore (“This Is Us”). She could even be joined by co-star Jodie Comer. Clarke will ride back into battle after “Game of Thrones” took a breather last year; then it’s all returning nominees after that.

There are about 15 names that could end up on the ballot here, so who knows what the right combination will be? The strongest bets are Dinklage, Harbour and Patinkin. “Stranger Things” star Noah Schnapp is a popular pick among prognosticators, so maybe Voight isn’t quite on cruise control and is due a miss. Or maybe “Game of Thrones” won’t be able to secure two spots in the lineup, leaving Coster-Waldau on the outside.

This is more or less the expected lineup, but former two-time winner Uzo Aduba (“Orange is the New Black”) is always a possibility. Vanessa Kirby from “The Crown” or Yvonne Strahovski from “The Handmaid’s Tale” could also rally support.

Hader is the new kid on the block while McCormack is back with the revived “Will and Grace.” Matt LeBlanc (“Episodes”) and Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) are also in the mix, while Ted Danson is still looking for a notice in NBC’s critically adored “The Good Place.” A drastic shake-up is unlikely, so maybe Galifianakis holds on after landing a nomination last year.

Ellie Kemper hasn’t missed for “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” in two years so maybe it’s unwise to leave her out, but with Messing returning, and Brie and Brosnahan charging in with popular new series, the lineup starts to get tight. Not to mention Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin from “Grace and Frankie,” or Frankie Shaw in Showtime’s new series “SMILF.”

This category is absolute murder to predict this year. Recent winners like Anderson and Alec Baldwin (“Saturday Night Live”) could end up on the outside looking in. Shalhoub and Winkler are respected vets expected to cruise into the lineup, while former winner Hayes is a strong bet to return to the fray. Henry ought to find love in a category that boxed him out last year, but Marc Maron (“GLOW”) could fall either way depending on how much “GLOW” galvanizes voters; perhaps they’ll make him wait for the even-better second season. And of course, Burgess is a perennial at this point. Even without “Veep,” this bench is deep.

The weakest links here are probably Metcalf (in a show canceled in the wake of Roseanne Barr’s Twitter meltdown) and Moreno (in a program that hasn’t yet taken off with voters). “Arrested Development” star Jessica Walter could stir up enough support — and, after that New York Times interview, sympathy — to land in the field for the first time in over a decade. Leslie Jones (“Saturday Night Live”) and D’Arcy Carden (“The Good Place”) are outside possibilities as well.

Virtuoso performances from Criss and Cumberbatch lead the way here. Banderas and Pacino are safe bets, along with Daniels (a likely double nominee this year with his supporting “Godless” performance in play as well). Meanwhile, Legend or Kyle MacLachlan (“Twin Peaks”) could really liven things up. We’ll lean to the former.

Multiple players from “Gianni Versace” and “The Looming Tower” are taking aim here. In fact, nearly the whole slate could be filled out with stars from the latter. The only contender that could really shake things up is Brandon Victor Dixon from “Jesus Christ Superstar,” but Michael Shannon is often an awards favorite even when the project isn’t, so he’s a possibility with “Fahrenheit 451.” And if voters can get past the ick factor, Jason Ritter could even find a spot for his unsettling turn in “The Tale.”

Laura Dern will be angling for a double nomination to go along with her sure-fire bid for “The Tale,” but how much will voters really embrace “Twin Peaks”? Sharon Stone is an outside possibility for HBO’s “Mosaic.” If anyone is a weak link in the lineup it might be Leigh, overshadowed by Cumberbatch’s tour-de-force work.

Sign Up for Daily Insider Newsletter

Sunday’s AFC and NFC championship games were nail-biters that went into overtime and sent viewership into overdrive. CBS harvested a whopping 53.9 million viewers as New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady led his team to their third consecutive Super Bowl berth in a hard-fought primetime game against the Kansas City Chiefs. Viewership for the AFC [...]

Welcome back to Tune In: our weekly newsletter offering a guide to the best of the week’s TV. Each week, Variety’s TV team combs through the week’s schedule, selecting our picks of what to watch and when/how to watch them. This week, “Rent: Live” airs on Fox and “Celebrity Big Brother” returns for a second [...]

Cocaine’s a hell of a drug, but you’re not seeing things: That, indeed is Showtime’s old 1980s-era logo pasted all over marketing materials and promos for “Black Monday,” a tongue-in-cheek tale of the excesses exhibited by Wall Street traders in the lead-up to the stock market crash of 1987. The logo, which hasn’t been in [...]

This is a particularly tricky review to write, but not because the merits of “Russian Doll” are at all ambiguous. On the contrary, the show is so striking and smart that I made a note to include it on my favorite TV shows of 2019 immediately after blowing through the season — which is saying [...]

Bringing to bear a talented cast on a story of real geopolitical significance, “Black Earth Rising,” Netflix’s drama about the long-tail aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, would seem to have had the potential to be one of 2019’s early television successes. Which makes its falling short all the more painful and pronounced. The show, previously [...]

The Season 1 finale of “Dirty John” on Bravo continued the scripted show’s ratings hot streak in Live+3. The finale, which aired on Jan. 13, grew to 3.3 million viewers in delayed viewing with 1.3 million of those falling in the key adults 18-49 demographic. That is up 10% in total viewers and 15% in [...]

Qatari powerhouse beIN Media Group is calling on Hollywood to join in fighting a pirate broadcaster that it alleges has stolen billions of dollars’ worth of rights to sports events, films and TV content, and that it says has the backing of Saudi Arabia. Doha-based beIN has compiled what it calls a “dossier of evidence” [...]